I’ll Steal Everything and Escape - Chapter 12

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

12.
With a thunderous roar, all three of their heads snapped upward. Something burst out of the swamp and into the open air…
“Aaaargh! What the hell is that!”
“Gah!”
A toad the size of a house. Elodie let out a breathless, incredulous laugh as the shadow of Reotodeu fell over her head.
“No kidding.”
Even seeing it again, it looked like a lie. All three of them spun around and started running. If they didn’t want to be crushed, they had to run.
Kwoong!
The ground shuddered with the impact, and Elodie stumbled, tumbling head over heels.
“…Gulk?”
The spot where the three of them had been standing a moment ago was ruthlessly flattened.
“Gwrrrluk.”
Spotting its prey, Reotodeu lumbered up onto the hill. The toad’s enormous throat sac bulged and quivered.
[What is that thing! It’s so huge…]
[Impossible. Wait a moment! Aaah!]
Vivid
memory
Along with that memory, Elodie ducked behind a massive tree. And then, after a moment.
“Gwrrluk!”
“Gh!”
Thud. Tristan raised his shield and took the monster’s heavy body-slam head-on.
Every time the beast moved, the soggy hillside squelched beneath it. Elodie poked her head out from behind the tree to take stock of the battle.
[So this one’s the leader. Its regeneration is absurd.]
[M-my sword won’t cut it, sir.]
[Ugh, it’s so sticky! It’s filthy!]
[…Louise, watch out!]
[Kyaaah! Louise!]
The swamp that covered half the southwestern terrain. This creature was the swamp’s de facto lord, a demonic beast of an unusual kind that might have lived for hundreds of years. Even before the regression, it had given them quite a struggle. Five of them had barely managed it, and now there were only Louise and Tristan.
‘It was probably about this time…’
Elodie raised her voice without realizing it.
“…Louise, we have to avoid this one!”
* * *
“Louise! We have to avoid this one!”
Louise Charmant, who had leapt forward intending to drive her spear in, felt her mood plummet to the floor. How dare this nobody.
“Tch.”
But there was no help for it. Elodie Pontaine’s ‘memory’ was quite accurate. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have snatched first place in theory at that prestigious Academy every single time.
“Gwrrluk!”
Louise’s brows arched as she twisted her body midair like an acrobat.
Chiiiik! A chilling sound grazed her ears. The noblewoman completed a full turn and landed, then turned back around.
“What on earth…”
“Gh.”
Tristan had raised his shield, but his body was soaked from the waist up in violet slime. The grass clumps nearby melted and sank in an instant.
“…So it was poisonous. Damn it, the cloth on my arm has melted away.”
Tristan clicked his tongue and shook off his exposed arms and legs. Drdeuk, gray cracks spread across his entire body. Louise tightened her grip on her spear and scowled.
‘…If it had been me who got hit instead of him, I’d have been half-dead.’
A body as hard as steel and Immunity to All Poisons. That’s why the knights of the Plant Family have held a seat within the Imperial Family for generations.
“Poison? Are you saying it’s evolved?”
The noblewoman gritted her teeth and glared at the filthy demonic beast.
“Louise, get back here! If you get careless—”
“Shut up, you walking boulder!”
Poison was nothing a good burning couldn’t solve. Her black ponytail whipped upward again. The black spear crackling with electricity lunged straight for the toad.
Kwadeuk.
“Why won’t it pierce! Why won’t it go through!”
Standing atop Reotodeu’s back as it writhed and thrashed, Louise saw with her own eyes what lay beneath its skin.
“Oh, for—”
Mud. Hardened, blackened mud. Layer upon layer of thick sediment, piled so deep that its core couldn’t even be seen. Her crimson eyes twisted with fury.
“Elodie Pontaine! Has anything like this ever happened before?”
A faint voice drifted over from somewhere far away.
“…It’s because it’s lived so long! In the swamp!”
It must have lived among the mud for dozens, hundreds of years, so it dried, hardened, and repeated the cycle until the layers piled up, one over another…
“So, it’s a natural armor!”
“Are you kidding me? Then what do you want me to do?!”
Bang, bang!
Sweat beaded and dripped from her forehead with every swing of her arms. After three days of trudging through the swamp, her stamina was nearly gone. Tristan joined in and slammed his shield into the toad, but the mud armor refused to give way. Reotodeu clearly had no intention of letting them off easy, and its bright yellow eyes rolled sluggishly in its skull.
“Gurk.”
A tempting target, fitting for a demonic beast of its enormous bulk.
“Gurrk.”
A jet-black tongue whipped past the brown-haired knight’s side.
“Pfft, what a clumsy miss.”
The smirk that had been curling on Tristan’s lips as he mocked the beast froze in an instant. The long tongue coiled like a whip and wrapped around his upper body.
Thud!
Tristan drove his shield into the ground and barely managed to keep himself from being dragged off. Screech, his feet carved long trails through the slick mud.
“Louise, attack now!”
“I’m already doing it, all right?”
Louise’s spear was stabbing the toad again and again, *thwack, thwack*, but the creature showed not a flicker of pain. Even when she drove the spear all the way in, it made no difference whatsoever.
“These crazy mud lumps! I can’t even tell where the skin is, wha—aaaaargh!”
Still lodged in the toad, Louise was flung into the air along with it. The enormous Reotodeu rose into the sky, clearly intending to flatten Tristan and Louise in one stroke.
Kwaaang!
True to their status as elite students at the top of the Academy, the two clung stubbornly to the toad’s body.
“What the hell is this thing?!”
This was nothing like the demonic beasts they had faced until now. Not only Louise but even Tristan’s face was plainly flustered. No matter how hard they hacked with spear or shield, the blows never reached the real skin, the creature sprayed poison whenever you let your guard down, and even when they severed the poison-spitting tongue, it regenerated in no time.
“Haah, haa. I’m going to kill it…”
“Robert! Please tell me the prince hasn’t been taken down by that thing!”
At that moment, from somewhere far off, the voice of Elodie Pontaine, whom they had nearly forgotten, rang out.
“I’ve found the weak point!”
Louise’s sharp pink eyes snapped toward the sound. There, peeking out from behind a tree far away, was the bookworm. Her messy blonde hair bobbed as she shrieked.
“Focus on the area near the lower right side of the neck! Keep hitting that same spot! That’s where the poison gland is, and if you destroy it, its regeneration should drop sharply too!”
Ha. A vein stood out on Louise’s sweat-soaked forehead.
‘You’re only telling us that now?’
* * *
“If you destroy that spot, its regeneration should drop sharply too!”
All that cupping of her hands and shouting hadn’t been wasted. Even from a distance, Tristan’s forearm was visible, the muscle bulging and flexing. He had clearly heard her perfectly.
“Did you hear that, Louise!”
“Tch, whatever. Just hold it down as much as you can!”
“Uaaaaaah!”
With a grand battle cry, Tristan hurled his shield backward. His huge palm clamped firmly around the toad’s tongue, which was coiled around his waist.
“Let’s see what you’ve got!”
His sturdy legs dug into the ground with a crunch. Tristan began hauling on the toad’s tongue as if in a tug-of-war. A test of strength between Tristan and the leader, Reotodeu!
Sensing that something was off, Reotodeu braced itself in place and yanked back at its prey. But that was exactly what they had been waiting for.
“Ugh, the smell of mud!”
Louise’s spear crackled, sparking with current, and sank into the back of Reotodeu’s neck. It was so thick that it didn’t reach its target in one blow, but once, twice, three times.
“Iiiyah!”
In mere seconds, the black spear pierced the same single point dozens of times. Elodie was left awestruck.
‘Terrifying, so terrifying.’
“Gurrrrrk!”
“Gah!”
As Reotodeu thrashed and leapt, Tristan, who was still gripping the tongue, was hurled upward along with it.
“Don’t let go!”
Louise shrieked, the corners of her lips curling up like a ghost’s. A shiver ran across her skin, raising goosebumps.
‘So this is what it feels like.’
Louise’s mana, which she had hardly been able to sense before, surged through her body with striking clarity. The mana gathered in her slender calves burst outward all at once, and the duke’s daughter shot straight up into the air.
“Die already!”
Reotodeu’s neck had been pierced through like a needle. Seeing the toad still writhing, Tristan yanked the tongue hard and launched himself straight into its mouth.
“Hic.”
Elodie rubbed her arm and shuddered all over. I didn’t ask for that much!

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————